Insight Venture Partners Invests in Episerver

Insight Venture Partners Invests in Episerver

If you have not heard the news, Episerver continues to rise as a serious player in the ecommerce and CMS space. They are in the process of closing on a sale to a new investor (Insight Venture Partners) after being bought by Accel-KKR a few short years ago.

Just last week, I had the pleasure of participating in a CEO Summit with Episerver leadership and a few other selected Episerver partners in London. During our all-day session, we learned more about the acquisition and plans ahead. Before I talk about that, I want to back up a little and talk about Adage’s journey with Episerver.

History

Back in 2009, Episerver was a relatively small CMS provider from Sweden when they opened an office in Chicago as their North American headquarters. In 2010, after some discussion and a thorough review of the platform, with the Episerver team, Adage decided to become an Episerver partner.

We have not looked back. The company has evolved since then from a simple, well architected CMS product to a full digital marketing suite that now handles CMS, commerce, marketing campaigns, social media, personalization, and analytics.

Industry Recognition

Starting with their first appearance on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management in 2009, they are the only CMS / ecommerce product to appear on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant reports for both Web Content Management 2018 and Digital Commerce 2018. Episerver is named a Leader in the CMS Magic Quadrant and Challenger in the Digital Commerce Quadrant. In addition, they were the only web / ecommerce platform to appear in this year’s Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Personalization where they were recognized as a Visionary.

“Episerver is a Challenger based on analysis of the Episerver Commerce module, which is part of and tightly integrated to its DXP, Episerver Digital Experience Cloud. Commerce functionality is available as a hybrid SaaS deployment via the Microsoft Azure PaaS. – Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce 2018

Episerver has also been recognized as a Leader on the Forrester Wave WCM 2017 report. Their most recent recognition and perhaps most impressive is Forrester’s Total Economic Impact study just released.

Cloud

Episerver has notably led the way for major CMS / ecommere platforms that will run the same code base for both cloud and on-premise deployments. While many of Epi competitors struggle to get this right, Epi has made this look easy with the majority of their new license sales deployed to their cloud offering, Episerver DXC. What’s even more impressive is Episerver has been able to offer an on-premise version using the same code base!

Looking Ahead

Episerver has a lot going for it and it is no wonder they have been acquired by a firm with a rich history of building winners.

The word from Episerver’s leadership is the same, they are going to continue to work on making Episerver the best value in digital experience platforms combining Web, Commerce, and Marketing.

According to a recent press release, “Episerver expects this transaction to propel its global growth strategy and market presence, and dramatically expand adoption for its Digital Experience Cloud™ platform.” (prnewswire.com, 9-6-18)

We’re looking forward to our continued partnership with Episerver as they build on what is one of the best software products I have had the pleasure to work with in my career.